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KARL BLOSSFELDT

June 1 - September 18, 2005

The German artist and professor
at the Berlin College of Art, Karl Blossfeldt, became world famous
overnight, when
a selection of his photographs of close-ups of plants and plant
sections, was published in 1928 under the title of Urformen der Kunst
(Art
Forms in Nature).

Karl Blossfeldt had taken photographs for more than thirty years,
but only used them in his teaching. He took photographs with
the help of a wood box camera he had constructed himself, and
glass
plates with coatings that allowed for a high degree of details.
He mostly
turned the negatives into slides, and used the projected
images as a teaching tool, making it possible for his students
to experience
Nature's inherent design vocabulary.

Although Blossfeldt did not consider himself a photographer,
the images are pure and expressive, as well as technically
accomplished.
As a photographer, Blossfeldt gives us access to a realm
that is often too small for the naked eye, while carefully
selecting plant
parts, that when enlarged, seem to give access to an unknown
and mysterious realm of beauty.

Urformen der Kunst featured 120 photogravures. Most of
the prints in this exhibition are from that book. Additional
prints are from
Wundergarten der Natur (Nature's Magical Garden), a collection
published in 1932.

Although it is believed that Blossfeldt took thousands
of photographs, only a couple of hundred are known today,
and his fame is not based
on the original photographs, but on the photogravures
published in the books.

A copy of either book, with all the plates intact, is
quite rare. The copy the University Art Gallery obtained,
had
plates already
cut out and/or missing, and we felt justified in turning
a selection of the prints into an exhibition.

The exhibition is a project of The New Bedford Cabinet
of Natural History, an institution that we began
to plan more
than five years
ago when the College of Visual and Performing Arts
moved into the renovated Star Store in downtown New
Bedford.

The New Bedford Cabinet of Natural History focuses
on the relationship between art and nature within
the context
of cultural history.
The first project by the Cabinet was the exhibition,
Tabernacle,
Temple,
King, Adulteress: Depictions of Jewish Life and
Religion in the 17th and 18th Century. Late in 2004 and early
in 2005, we then
featured
much of the Cabinet collection in the University
Art Gallery and the Crapo Gallery spaces.

A selection of objects from the Cabinet is now
on display in the Crapo Gallery, where we also,
for
the first
time, are featuring
two display cabinets donated by the Falmouth
Historical Society, and
refurbished by Chad Aldridge (MFA 2005).